I just returned from an eight day Zen retreat on Death and Dying--a professional training for doctors, nurses, social workers, and spiritual directors. Not being in any of the above professions, I found myself asking the question whether I would fit into the retreat. Since I do not work at a hospice nor in a hospital setting, why, I wondered, was I here? I convinced myself that this question would hopefully get answered during the week ahead.

The morning meditations and dharma talks emphasized letting go of the mind and allowing ourselves to become fully present. In this state, we could bear witness, not attempting to do anything such as give direction or advice, but to sit and observe in an awakened state of receptivity and compassion--a place of not knowing. I thought back on my experience with patients dying of Aids when I had been fearful and anxious, avoiding them during their final days at home. I felt inadequate, certain that there was something that I was supposed to do or say to someone dying. I had to be the expert.

On the fourth morning, the Roshi took us through a morning practice, referred to as the Nine Contemplations of Atisha--a guided meditation on the nine doorways that teach about the nature of death and dying. Her only instructions were to listen serenely and openly and consider deeply what is said. I sat with my legs folded under me with my hands resting on my knees and my eyes looking downward. To my shock, we were going through the stages of our own dying. I remember her saying, "death is inevitable for all living beings. The time of our death is unknown. Material objects cannot help us. What can we do to prepare? What can we do to strengthen this awareness and our capacity to release? What can we do to make it more possible for us to be really present for another who is facing the loss of everything at the moment of their death?"

All my self doubt, all my training as a clinical psychologist, all my belief of separateness between myself and others suddenly fell away. The meditation broke my heart. It was like dropping a fine crystal on cement--a shattering of conceptual knowing into a thousand broken pieces. A lifetime of defining myself, of closing my heart so tight that it struggled to feel, a routine of comfort and predictability in things....all gone. In its place was a new ache, a new tenderness--an ocean of tears that I had carefully walled off now flooded me. I grieved at last, for the loss of friends and patients to Aids and cancer, for my fatherŐs early death, and for the loss of myself through years of detached clinical interpretations that had robbed my work of compassion.

Later that night, a friend took me out into the night to see the incredible Santa Fe sky, full of stars and a crescent moon. She told me of a saying her Rabbi had told her---"only through a broken heart can there be wholeness." A wholeness of heart, unprotected and loving, finally able to truly bear witness to dying and to life. I knew why I had come; to remember whom I was before I closed my heart. I now held this new tenderness with great reverence, wondering if I would need to start a daily practice to keep my heart open? Of course! Would I need to be open about my experience, feeling exposed as never before...peeling back layers of professional distance and attempting to sit with this discomfort? Of course! Would I stop working with terminal illness and avoid moments where I am not an expert? Hopefully, I would not!

I will try to remember and practice the contemplative approach to being with dying: not knowing, simply allowing the truth of each situation to inform me; bearing witness, welcoming everything, and practicing fearless receptivity and compassionate action, bringing the work forward through the practice of mindful presence. On my return to Los Angeles, I signed up to volunteer at a local hospital on the oncology floor to be a companion to patients wanting someone to listen.

The retreat mentioned in this article is Being with the Dying: A Professional Training Program with Roshi Joan Halifax and others-Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Resources on Death and Dying: Books

Dr. Sherman is a psychotherapist in practice in Hermosa Beach. She is a member of the Independent Psychotherapy Network.

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